Now or Never
by Writtenhouse
Summary: In which Erin gets lost, and Jay goes to find her. "That's the problem with burning bridges: if you catch yourself on fire, than anyone who could help you is left on the other side to watch you burn." Post 4x23.


**_Post-finale oneshot for Chicago PD. I wrote this a while ago but didn't publish it…because I forgot._**

 ** _I'm warning you though, the first thing I did when I saw the finale was compare it to Paper Towns, so this story will probably not be a fun ride. But I can promise it will be sad and beautiful, and I'll put in some elements that I wish they had included in the finale. (Hint, Linstead, hint hint.)_**

 ** _If you want music with the right "mood" for this story, I suggest Long Lost by Florence the Machine, Never Let Me Go by Florence the Machine, and Nothing Left to Say by Imagine Dragons._**

The first rays of dawn tinted the eastern sky pink against the hills, but the beauty of a sunrise was lost on Erin Lindsay. Only the fraction of her concentration needed to keep her from driving off the road was focused on her surroundings. The rest of her mind was a hundred miles away, scattered among the buildings and streets of the city she used to call home. Where her heart was, she couldn't say. That was part of her sacrifice; to lose her heart, to lose herself. And now she was just another driver on a remote highway, rushing towards either a new future or a desolate destruction.

She had been driving since about four in the morning. She had slept only a little last night, in her car in some empty parking lot. It had been late last night when she left Chicago, and even later when she had finally been too tired to drive any longer. But for all her exhaustion, sleep was an elusive beast to capture. So after a few fitful hours of tossing and turning, she gave up and got back on the road.

The lonely road, heading ever onwards.

A hundred miles away, Chicago was still in darkness. But Jay Halstead was as awake as he could be. There had been no sleep for him, not last night. He had waited for Erin for hours, hours he had waited, but she never came. She wouldn't answer his calls, either. Eventually he had gone looking for her, checking every possible place he could think of. He had gone to her apartment, but it was locked and the windows were dark. He couldn't get in; he no longer had a key. He had cursed every one of the stupid things that had gotten in between he and Erin and caused them to break up in the first place, but cursing wasn't going to help him find Erin.

Jay had even gone to Bunny's bar, but he had no luck there either. Erin was simply nowhere to be found. He had finally gone back to Will's at around two in the morning.

"Jay, you still up?" Will asked. Jay looked up. His brother stood in the living room doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Um, yeah. I couldn't sleep." Jay said. He had been planning to get some sleep, but sleep just wouldn't come to him.

"Any luck with finding Erin?" Will asked. Jay just shook his head.

"Have you tried calling Voight?" Will asked. Jay snorted.

"At five in the morning? Are you kidding? He'd murder me." Jay said.

"He probably knows where Erin is, though." Will said.

"Yeah. But like I said, he'd murder me. I guess I'll have to wait until it gets light out at least." Jay said, frowning.

After half an hour, Jay was still sitting on the couch, watching the clock. The second—the second the clock read seven, he was going to call Voight. But clocks, as everyone knows, move at a crawl when they are watched.

"Jay. Just call. Voight will forgive you this once." Will said, noticing that Jay was having trouble keeping still.

Jay looked up at his brother in disbelief.

"You don't know Voight. He'll kill me, and then even if he does know where Erin is, he won't tell me at five-thirty in the morning." Jay said, and resumed his clock-watching. Will sighed.

"Fine, I'll call him, since you're clearly going to go insane before seven." Will picked up his phone and dialed Voight's number before Jay could stop him.

"Hey, Hank? It's Will Halstead, I have a question about Detective Lindsay."

Jay had to stop himself from wincing. Voight would see through that in a heartbeat; he'd know it was really Jay who wanted to know.

Jay watched Will's face as he listened. Suddenly, the smile dropped from his brother's face. Jay sat bolt upright, heart racing. He opened his mouth to ask Will what was wrong, but Will held up a finger to quiet him.

"Thank you." Will finished, and hung up. Jay could hardly speak fast enough.

"Where's Erin? Is she okay? What did Voight tell you?" Jay asked. Will sat down next to Jay, his face serious.

"Jay...Erin left last night." Will said. Jay was confused.

"Left? What do you mean, left?" He asked.

"She left Chicago, Jay. She took a job in New York. She's driving there now."

For a fraction of a second, Jay sat stock-still, as if turned to stone. Then he got up and walked into his bedroom.

Will sighed. "Jay. I know that attitude. You can't just—"

"Don't." Jay cut him off. "I'm going after Erin. There's nothing you can say that will stop me."

Will hesitated, then nodded.

"Don't forget your coat." He said.

The road stretched out in front of Erin, a flat gray strip pointing straight into the distance like an arrow. The road looked the same in front of her as it did behind. The countryside had gone from fields to forest and back again to fields, but Erin didn't care about scenery. She stared off into the distance, her eyes following the line of the road until it faded in the haze of distance and midday heat.

Erin could barely keep her eyes open. The heat and the monotony of the highway had combined to deaden her senses and put her into a half-asleep state.

When her eyes actually closed for the third time, she decided it was time for a rest. There were no rest stops on this area. There weren't any buildings either, not even a barn. Erin picked a spot at random to stop; it looked the same as every other piece of highway. She pulled over.

Not for the first time, Erin wondered what she was doing. Why had she really left? Was it to protect her mother? To accept a job? She had thought that those were her reasons, but after over a hundred miles on the lonely road, she wasn't sure anymore.

More to the point, why hadn't she said a proper goodbye? She could have answered Jay's calls last night, could have at least given him enough of her time to let him know she was leaving. But she hadn't. Why?

Something deep inside her suspected that had she taken the time to say goodbye, she never would have left. She had to leave without looking back or not at all. Burn all the bridges. Cut all the strings. The only way she could leave everything she had ever known was if she broke all her attachments.

The only problem was that, without any strings attached, Erin felt as if she was drifting. Yes, she had set herself free, but what had she really done? She had gotten herself lost.

Or maybe she had already been lost. Maybe she had been lost ever since she was a child. No matter how hard she tried to stay grounded, to find a purpose, she never could seem to escape the feeling of not belonging. She always ended up lost somehow.

And now here she was; sitting on the side of a desolate highway. She thought she knew what she was driving towards, but now she was drifting. Lost again.

It was twelve o'clock at night. Jay wasn't stopping; he was determined to drive all night if it meant he could catch up to Erin sooner. His only stop so far had been to stock up on caffeinated drinks to keep awake.

He didn't understand why Erin had left so suddenly. It wasn't like her to cut off all ties like that. Not so completely, anyway.

Maybe this was just an extreme version of Erin's tendency to push people away when she was hurt. Maybe she felt as if she was only a burden to all of them, and so she had left.

Or maybe after all that had happened, she wanted to put distance between herself and anything familiar. Maybe she had given up on the life she had, and had left to start over.

But what Erin didn't realize, Jay thought, was that no matter if she had lost all hope, no matter if she had given up, no matter what she did, he would never, never give up on her.

He would find her. And Jay knew exactly what he would say when he did.

Erin stopped at a motel for the night. It was some trashy place with a broken neon sign and a lobby that smelled of dirt and sweat, but Erin didn't care. As long as it was a place to sleep.

She was too tired to do anything more than collapse on top of the bed and fall asleep. But before she closed her eyes, her last thought was, why did I ever leave Chicago?

Jay refused to admit that he was tired. He had been driving all night. He hadn't stopped, except to fill up on gas.

He fought sleep as one fights an army. But Jay would not stop. Not until he found Erin.

 _The next day, later._

The road once again stretched long, gray and flat in front of Erin. The monotonous scenery was starting to blur together. She had been looking at the same fields and dreary highway all day, ever since she left the motel at six that morning.

Random thoughts flitted through Erin's mind, but nothing stuck. She couldn't seem to form a fully coherent thought anymore, only little flickers.

Only a deep feeling of loneliness made its way through the jumble of mindless thoughts to the deeper level of Erin's mind.

She missed her home.

But she couldn't turn back; she had to burn that bridge. It was part of the deal, part of the sacrifice. One sacrifice in a list of many.

Jay was on another desolate stretch of highway. He had been driving all day, and one road looked as alike to the next as two peas in a pod. Shouldn't he have caught up to Erin yet?

He was so tired. So, so tired. He wanted...to sleep...

Jay jerked upright. He couldn't fall asleep. No sleeping at the wheel. That was bad.

He tried to focus, keep himself awake. He trained his eyes on minute details around him; a leaf, a wisp of cloud, a road sign that read Andersonville, home of...well, nothing interesting, the license plate of the black car in front of him...

Wait! Jay sat bolt upright in his seat. He knew that car. He knew that license plate.

Jay almost laughed with relief. Finally, after all these sleepless hours, he had caught up to Erin.

But now a problem presented itself. How, exactly, was he going to get her to stop?

Fortunately, in the next second that problem solved itself.

Unfortunately, the cure was worse than the disease.

Jay watched it enfold in slow motion. A car from the other lane suddenly veered off, straight into oncoming traffic.

The car's brakes squealed, it turned half-sideways, and slammed into Erin's car head-on. Both cars spun and rolled, Erin's car flipping end-over-end into the field beside the road. The car rolled over sideways once, twice, three times before finally coming to a stop, upside down in the grass.

Jay slammed on his own brakes, burning rubber as he skidded to a stop inches away from the other car as it landed upright on the side of the road.

He was out of his car and running down into the field before the tires on Erin's car had even stopped spinning.

Jay's heart was racing. He needed to get to Erin, but he had no idea if she had even survived. He pulled out his phone to dial 911 as he ran.

"Hello? Yeah, there's a car accident at...on highway 25?"

Erin didn't even have time to scream. One second she had been driving eastward on the same monotonous highway she had been on all day, and the next second there had been a tremendous impact, and the world spun around her like a gyroscope.

Erin held on tight to the steering wheel, but her fingers slipped, and even so, the strongest grip in the world couldn't have stopped her body from being snapped back and forth with the motions of the car.

Glass flew everywhere as the windows shattered, and Erin heard the tearing of metal. On the car's last sideways roll her seatbelt caught, wrenching her shoulder, and then came loose. Erin grabbed for a handhold but in the disorienting environment of the out-of-control car, she couldn't find one. She felt herself thrown free of her seat, hitting against something but she didn't see what it was. As everything spun end-over-end and the sky blended with the earth rushing up to meet her, Erin's eyes closed and she blacked out.

The next thing she knew, Erin was lying on her back on the rough ground. She could hear the sounds of the highway, but they sounded so distant, drowned out by the ringing in her ears. She wanted to move, to get up, but already a heaviness had settled into her limbs. She couldn't move.

Erin didn't feel any pain, but something told her that wasn't a good thing. Her chest felt tight; it was hard to breathe. She coughed weakly and tasted blood.

Erin closed her eyes. She was going to die here, in this field beside this desolate highway, three hundred miles from everyone she had ever cared about.

That was the thing about burning bridges; if you caught on fire in the process, anyone who could help you was left on the other side to watch you burn.

Jay ran down the embankment into the field, nearly tripping over himself. Adrenaline surged through his veins; if there was any time he needed it, it was now.

Erin's car was a wreck. Both doors were torn off, the windows were shattered, and the frame was bent almost beyond recognition. Even worse, there was no sign of Erin.

Jay heard a cough. He glanced around, heart racing. Was that Erin? Was she still alive? If she had managed to get out of the car, she must not be hurt too badly, right?

Then he saw her. She was lying in the grass about twenty feet away. She was covered in blood, and she was lying at an awkward angle. Jay was no expert on anatomy, but he didn't think that backs were supposed to bend like that.

"Erin!" Jay said, running to her. He knelt down next to her.

"Erin? Erin, can you hear me?" Jay asked. Erin coughed again and blood flecked her lips. Her eyes fluttered open.

"Jay?" She whispered. "But...no. I left you." Erin broke off, coughing.

"Shh, Erin, it's okay." Jay reassured her, although he didn't believe a word of it himself. She was in bad shape.

"How...are you...here?" Erin gasped in between coughs. Jay gave her a sad smile.

"Did you think it was that easy to get rid of me?" He said.

Erin wondered if she was hallucinating. Seeing Jay there, hearing his voice, she still wasn't sure it wasn't some kind of dream, or a subconscious wish made visible in the presence of impending death.

"Erin, stay with me." Jay begged her. But Erin felt herself slipping. She could feel death like a poison rising within her, dark, cold, and heavy.

"Eyes open, Erin. Look at me." Jay said.

Erin fought against the cold feeling that was threatening to take over. She couldn't hold it back forever, but hallucination or not, she wanted to enjoy this moment as long as it lasted.

In the face of death, Erin realized, things became a whole lot clearer. She had cut all ties, burned all her bridges, and that had set her adrift in the world. She had felt lost. She hadn't known what she wanted; everything was clear as day one moment, and obscured by fog the next. But now, it was completely clear. Erin didn't want this; any of it. She just wanted home.

"Jay?" She asked. Her voice came out as a cracked whisper. Jay—or the hallucination of Jay—answered.

"Erin? Shh...it's alright." He said. Erin coughed again.

"I...I lo—" she broke off in a fit of coughing.

"I love...you." She said when she could breathe again, although it was hard, and it hurt.

"I love you, Jay." She repeated.

Tears sprung to the corners of Jay's eyes.

"I love you too, Erin. More than you could ever know." He reached out and took her hand.

Erin gasped at his touch, her eyes filling with tears.

"Jay!...you...you came all this way?...How did you even...find me?" She asked. Jay was confused. Hadn't she already asked him that? Was she even aware of what she was saying?

"Erin...I couldn't let you leave like that. I couldn't lose you." Jay told her.

Erin thought her heart would break. It was no hallucination; Jay was really, miraculously here. His hand in hers was real, more real than anything Erin had felt for the past two days, ever since she left Chicago.

"I thought you were...I thought I was hallucinating." She said. She coughed again, and blood rose in her throat. She didn't have much time left.

"Jay, hold me." She begged. If she was going to die, she wanted to die in his arms.

Jay could see Erin struggling to breathe. She had asked him to hold her, but he couldn't. He couldn't move her without killing her. All he could do was hold her hand.

He knew, deep down, that she was dying anyway. On this remote highway, the ambulance was never going to get there in time.

Jay didn't want Erin to die, he wanted her to live so he could take her back to Chicago and they could spend the rest of their lives together. Jay wanted to spend forever with Erin. But he knew that forever was no longer possible. He couldn't spend the rest of his life with Erin.

But she could spend the rest of her life with him. Her forever was limited to the next few minutes, but she could spend it with him.

Jay remembered what he had been planning to ask Erin before all this had happened. Maybe it was stupid now, maybe it wasn't. Whatever it was, though, it was now it never.

"Erin Lindsay." Jay said, taking a deep breath. Erin stared up at him, her eyes barely focused.

"I love you more than anything, Erin. I would trade places with you in a heartbeat if I could. I would give you the whole world if it had even a chance of saving you." He said.

"I...know, Jay. But you can't." Erin gasped, a tear escaping and tracing a path down her face. She was hardly breathing.

"But I can give you this." Jay said, pulling his mother's ring out of his pocket.

"Erin Lindsay, will you marry me?" Jay asked.

Erin's breaths were shallow and with too long of a pause between each one. But she managed an answer.

"Yes." Erin whispered weakly.

Jay took her limp left hand in both of his, and slipped the ring onto her finger. The ring looked out of place on Erin's blood and dirt-covered hand, but to Jay it was beautiful.

Jay leaned in and kissed Erin. She responded, kissing back as much as she was able, but she was too weak. Jay wished he could breathe life into her lungs, but he wasn't a superhero. For now, all he could do was kiss the love of his life. This would be their forever. It was a small forever, a broken forever.

But it was a beautiful forever.

Jay would have stretched the moment out for eternity if he could have, but Erin didn't have eternity. As Jay kissed Erin, he felt her go limp. She stopped responding, not suddenly, not abruptly, but quietly. One last breath escaped her lips, and then she just seemed to fade.

Jay pulled back, looking down at Erin. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. She was not breathing. Jay felt for a pulse. There was none.

"Erin..." Jay started to say, but didn't finish. Erin could no longer hear him.

Jay closed his eyes. Here he was, in a field by a lonely highway, three hundred miles from home.

The wind came floating down the highway, heading east. It rustled through the grass in waves like the ocean currents. It flicked Erin's hair away from her still face and tangled it into knots with the grass. It caught up a few loose flower petals and tossed them about in the air before it dropped them, like mementos at a monument, across the seat of the twisted metal contraption that had once been a car. The wind continued ever eastward, rushing through the trees and off down the desolate gray strip that called itself the highway.

Jay turned his face into the wind and let it blow away his tears.

 ** _Well that was only the saddest Linstead fanfic I've ever written (or read, for that matter.)_**

 ** _Honestly, though, this was an easier ending to live with than the way the finale actually ended. I hate it when people leave like Erin did, without telling anyone. It's sad to me because reasons._**

 ** _—Angel_**


End file.
